Paleo-friendly Blooming Beets Kitchen blossoming in Boulder

Blooming Beets Kitchen, a new restaurant tentatively scheduled to open this weekend in Boulder, will feature a 100 percent Paleo diet-friendly menu. The restaurant, sandwiched between Vic's coffee shop and the Boulder Cork at 3033 30th Street, bills itself as the first all-Paleo restaurant in Boulder, and promises a menu that does not include processed foods, vegetable oils, added sugars or grains.

Founder Iva Paleckova, who also runs a Paleo blog at paleoflip.com, describes Blooming Beats as the "healthiest restaurant in Boulder." It's also the culmination of a dream for her, one made possible by a successful indiegogo campaign earlier this year. She's just waiting for the final inspection okay from the city, and then Blooming Beets will really blossom.

"I started eating healthy and eliminating processed foods from my diet, but there was nothing in Boulder," Paleckova explains. "I ended up cooking and cooking and cooking."

So she decided that if Boulder didn't have a restaurant that catered to her diet, she would open one that did. "I did a corporate job for three years, and when I looked back and asked myself what I really liked doing, I realized I really like working in restaurants," says Paleckova.

Jude Wolpert

Although all the food at Blooming Beets will be Paleo-friendly, Paleckova insists that eating healthy is just a side benefit of a focus on delicious food. "Blooming Beets is built on the foundations of Paleo nutrition, but it is first and foremost a restaurant where you will want to take your friends, family and coworkers to enjoy a lovely meal -- breakfast, lunch or dinner," she says. "The menu is full of unbelievable flavors and amazing dishes."

And Paleckova wants the restaurant to be more than just a place where you eat, pay your check and leave. "We will be giving away recipes," she says. "We really want people to know how to cook the food at home. Our mission is to educate and help improve the well-being of our community. Our strategy is to use delicious food and lovely meals to spread awareness about healthier ways of eating that can be incorporated into a fun and vibrant lifestyle."

Jude Wolpert

To put all these ingredients together, Paleckova has brought in Brittany Kerr, who'd been the executive chef of The Penn Avenue Fish Company in Pittsburgh. "I picked Brittany over other chefs with more experience because she is young, ambitious and I was looking for someone who could be innovative," Paleckova says. "I can't tell you how excited I am with everybody we have. We have a great crew!"

Chef Kerr at work in the kitchen

Sanjay Gupta

Eating healthy and locally is central to the ideals of Blooming Beets, and Paleckova has taken the eco-conscious concept a few steps further by incorporating wine racks from reclaimed wood, focusing on composting and recycling, and using green products whenever possible. "There's only so much you can do in a commercial kitchen to make it green with all the regulations around cleaning and sanitizers, but we are working with the health department and going out of our way to make this environment safe and free of chemical toxins," she says. "We produce some of our own cleaning supplies from our own recipes, and use EcoLogic's green products to help with sanitation."

A peek inside the dinning room at Blooming Beets

Sanjay Gupta

For more on Blooming Beets, go to its Facebook page or website. And you can catch Paleckova's Indiegogo campaign video below: